1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of driving a plasma display panel (PDP) and more particular to a method of driving a plasma display panel comprising a plurality of display electrodes for producing surface discharge and a plurality of address electrodes (signal electrodes) for selection arranged orthogonally to each other between a pair of substrates.
2. Description of Related Art
In the above-described PDP, the display electrodes are extended in a row direction of a screen and arranged parallel to each other to have equal spaces therebetween. Display lines capable of producing surface discharge are defined between adjacent display electrodes. The address electrodes are extended in a column direction of the screen and arranged orthogonally to the display electrodes, thereby defining cells (unit light emitting regions) at points of intersection of the display lines and the address electrodes.
In a common PDP of surface discharge type, two display electrodes constitute a pair for producing surface discharge. Accordingly, a single display electrode between two adjacent display lines serves as a scan electrode for the two display lines. That is, at the time of producing address discharge for selecting a cell to illuminate, a single scan electrode is used both for an odd-numbered display line and an even-numbered display line. Accordingly, the displaying operation is generally carried out in an interlace mode. In this description, hereinafter, the PDP having a construction provided with the display electrodes arranged to have equal spaces therebetween will be referred to as an ALiS (Alternate Lighting of Surfaces) type PDP.
As compared with a PDP in which a pair of display electrodes is given for each of the display lines, the ALiS type PDP is advantageous to large-scale integration of the cells because it ensures the number of cells equal to that in the above-mentioned PDP while the number of the display electrodes is reduced. However, the interlace mode is inferior in display quality to a so-called progressive mode in which the display lines are scanned in sequence. Accordingly, various methods for driving the ALiS type PDP in the progressive mode have been proposed.
In the ALiS type PDP, as described above, a scan pulse is applied to every other display electrode used as the scan electrode in order to select a cell to illuminate. Since a single scan electrode is used for two display lines, a technique for selection between the two display lines is required.
Such a technique is known as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-181402, in which auxiliary discharge is taken place before the scan pulse is applied to the display electrodes, so that one of the two display lines is selected depending on the existence of the auxiliary discharge. However, the technique takes much time for the addressing because an auxiliary pulse needs to be applied before the scan pulse, and thus not practical. Moreover, the driving circuit is complicated.